EBRD deposits City requirement
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development is preparing to launch a major London office requirement.
A handful of agents have been invited to pitch for the instruction to advise on sourcing a new headquarters of up to 375,000 sq ft.
The bank is currently located at British Land’s and GIC’s One Exchange Square at 175 Bishopsgate, EC2. It occupies around 290,000 sq ft on a 31-year lease expiring in 2022 and pays around £52 per sq ft.
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development is preparing to launch a major London office requirement.
A handful of agents have been invited to pitch for the instruction to advise on sourcing a new headquarters of up to 375,000 sq ft.
The bank is currently located at British Land’s and GIC’s One Exchange Square at 175 Bishopsgate, EC2. It occupies around 290,000 sq ft on a 31-year lease expiring in 2022 and pays around £52 per sq ft.
The search is expected to take in options in the City, Canary Wharf and further afield, with the bank likely to consider both prelets and existing space.
An EBRD spokesman said: “We are in a tendering process to secure a real estate consultant to assist us in formulating a real estate strategy.”
EBRD joins a long list of financial services occupiers with active or upcoming requirements that are expected to drive City rental growth over the next two years.
Wells Fargo, Jefferies, Crédit Agricole, Sumitomo and Icap are among the financial services giants with active requirements. Collectively they are seeking more than 600,000 sq ft.
The surge in financial services demand will be a welcome boost to the City, which saw take-up dip to below 1m sq ft for the first time in more than a year in the third quarter of 2015.
A total of 844,210 sq ft of City offices were leased between September 2014 and June 2015, according to EGi data, pushing full-year take-up in the Square Mile to 3.2m sq ft.
Some 3.1m sq ft of offices are under construction in the City, with a further 2.6m sq ft in the pipeline.
jack.sidders@estatesgazette.com
